I’m enjoying Alan Carr’s Changing Ends auto-bio-pic on ITV

I think I’m right in saying that as well as having a dad who was a football manager he was also related to Willie Carr, who was famous for the immediately banned donkey kick

I’d never seen the donkey kick until I looked it up this morning, but it was explained and diagrammed in the Golden Goals sticker book, which as a kid I studied with almost religious intensity ⚽

The video of the kick is here - youtu.be/DOS8T8Ypn…

People I have seen on the train between Salisbury and London

The two writers were in second class the other two were in first

We’re voting again today

There’s a local council byelection. It will feel a bit flat after last weeks hullabaloo and history-making

This morning, instead of putting coffee granules in my coffee mug, i put them in the pint glass that I use for orange squash

This does not bode well

never a penalty…but never mind! ⚽

I didn’t know this Guardian series existed, but I like it 📖

Where to start with…… - www.theguardian.com/books/ser…

I was in the middle of posting very slightly off-colour and then lost eveything i’d written

This was probably through my incompetence…. but I’d like to think that it was some incredibly clever micro.blog algorithm that has worked out that I’ve had a couple of beers and might regret posting it in the morning

I like this statue of Oscar Wilde, near Charing Cross

Wilde isn’t someone who has had a huge impact on me, but I’ve always thought he’d be great to have had a night in the pub with…for me this statue, from this angle, is very much that

#TodayILearned that the chant

We know what we are We know what we are Champions of Europe We know what we are

….is Shakespearean, almost

we know what we are but know not what we may be. Hamlet, Act 4, Scene 5

I really enjoyed Kiss Me Kate at the Barbican, at the weekend. Here are some bullet points

• it’s a traditional Broadway-style musical…executed perfectly

• it’s mad that human beings can be so talented

• i really like the Barbican…but how much time has been spent over the years by people trying to work out the seat numbers?

• the words are very witty. Cole Porter knew what he was doing

• the updates were good too…it was neat that, given there was a Kate, and Ted, that they called the band leader ‘Steve’

• the set reminded me a little bit of Adrian Dunbar’s theatre in Hear My Song

• I was really impressed by what I later discovered is called “the chair rollover trick” link

• it was worth turning the phone off just before England’s penalties….but tbf I dont much enjoy England penalties anyway

I’m sure there will be disappointments and muck-ups ahead.

But for now i am enjoying the thought of ‘Prime Minister Kier Starmer’, and ‘Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper’, and ‘Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy’ and all the rest

I was reminded, the other day, of something Tony Blair said

“When we came to power we were at our most popular but least effective. When we left we were at our most effective, but least popular.”

💬

I had a wonderful time yomping around Salisbury Plain on Friday, but at this point my feet are half human, and half Compeed blister plaster

The origin truth of football is that outstanding individuals doing outrageous things is no basis for a team. The origin truth of international tournaments is that, every once in a while, it doesn’t matter.

Jonathan Liew at the Düsseldorf Arena ⚽💬

England lose control and embrace the chaos to rise from the canvas again - www.theguardian.com/football/…

Because it’s easy to take a good photo of Stonehengeq

Not sure who i want to win - Germany because Rudiger used to play for Chelsea, or Spain because Cucarella currently plays for Chelsea

And they say men have no emotional depth…

⚽ #MastodonFC

Because it’s easy to take a good photo of Stonehengeq

Liz Truss has lost her seat….jeepers

Much as I disagree with her about pretty much everything, that must be tough

Wish me luck

I’ve been and gone and voted

What I did in June

• saw the magnificent Fly Yeti Fly
• curry at the Elai
• lots of training walks
• possibly my best header in 40 years
• ate a cornetto
• watched the ‘debate of many leaders’
• picked up chum who’d come off his bike
• cemented in a new washing line
• laptop irretrievably blue-screened
• read and simultaneously listened to the Rime of the Ancient Mariner
• hacked back an overgrown holly bush
• linux-ified the blue-screened laptop
• ordered a speaker that was several times bigger than I expected
• beer in the Coach and Horses
• Aldi
• brained myself on a road sign
• picked up Child #2
• enjoyed Bad Boys
• got a rain coat
• watched England

I thought England should have done much better against Slovenia

It looks like I underestimated Slovenia ⚽

For the first time ever, I just got asked to take part in an opinion poll

One of the questions, after they’d done the serious ones, was who would I rather have as Prime Minister

• Kier Starmer or
• Rishi Sunak or
• Nigel Farage or
• Ed Davey or
• Taylor Swift or
• Ant and Dec

I should have said I wanted them all to job-share on a one-day-per-week basis

As a wise man once said, “Football. Bloody hell.”

⚽

It would be a shame if Joe Biden is mainly remembered as the guy that enabled the second Trump presidency